Lydia Constantinovna's bedroom was cold and gloomy. As formerly, it contained a huge four-poster, a chest of drawers, a dressing table and a wardrobe. The rain beat fiercely against the window panes running down in tiny glass globules.
Lydia lighted two candles, and placed them beside the tarnished mirror. Some toilette belongings, relics of her childhood, lay on the chest-of-drawers, and the contents of the baggage she had brought with her the previous day were scattered about the room. The candles burnt dimly, their yellow tongues flickering unsteadily over the tarnished mirror.
She changed her garments and put on a loose green neglige, then re- arranged her hair into plaits, forming them into a coronet which made her head appear very small and graceful.
From force of habit she opened a bottle of perfume, moistened the palms of her hands and rubbed them over her neck and bosom. At once she felt giddy, even the cold, dampish sheets on her bed seemed to smell of chipre.
Lydia sat down on the edge of her bed in her green negligé, listening to the sounds around her. Outside, there was a continuous howling and barking of dogs, now and then she could distinguish the croaking of half-awakened crows in the park.
The clock struck eleven, then half-past, someone passed along the corridor, Aganka cleared up in the dining-room, Mintz walked to and fro in the drawing-room, then all became quiet.
Lydia Constantinovna went to the window and gazed out for a long time. Then, quietly, she left her bedroom and crept down to Ivanov's study. All around her it was dark, cold and silent as she passed through the empty, spacious rooms. A forgotten candle still burnt wanly in the drawing-room, and a rat ran out from under the table.
She was again plunged in darkness when she entered Ivanov's study, and she was greeted by a smell of horse trappings and joiners' glue.
Ivanov was asleep on the sofa. He lay on his back, his arms extended; the outlines of his body could just be discerned. Lydia sat down quietly beside him and laid her hand on his breast. Ivanov sighed, drew in his arms and raised his head quickly from the pillow:
Who is there?
It is I, Sergius—me—Lida, answered Lydia Constantinovna in a rapid whisper. "I know you do not wish to speak to me. I am bored … I returned here in a happy mood, not even thinking of you, and now all at once I feel wretched…. Oh, those perfumes! How they torment me…." She passed her hand over her face, then was silent. Ivanov sat up.
What is the matter Lida? What do you want? he asked drowsily, and he lighted a cigarette. The light shone on them as they sat half- dressed on the sofa. Ivanov had a rugged, lumbering look.
What do I want? Lydia Constantinovna murmured. "Age creeps on me, Sergius, and a lonely old age is terrible … I feel so weary…. I came here happy enough, now I am miserable. I can think of nothing but the time you and I spent here together … I am always playing" A Summer's Night in Berezovka "—do you remember? I used to play it to you in those days…. Well, so there you see…. Age creeps on and I am longing for a home…. To-day they had the Twelfth Gospel Service…. Surely we still have a word for each other?" Her face clouded in sudden doubt. "You have been with Arina then?" she questioned sharply.
Ivanov did not answer immediately.
I have grieved and worried greatly, Lida, he said at last, "but that does not matter. These four years I have lived alone, and have placed the past behind me. It is gone for ever. These four years I have struggled against death, and struggled for my daily bread. You know nothing of all this, we are as strangers…. Yes, I have been with Arina. Soon I shall have a son. I do not know if I am broken or merely tired, but for the moment I feel all right. I am going to bring Arina here, she will be my wife and keep house for me. And I shall live…. I am keeping step with some elemental Force . . . I shall have a son…. It will be a totally different life for me, Lida."
And for me Moscow—as ever—wine, theatres, cafes, Mintz, an eternal hurly-burly … I am sick of it!
I cannot help you, Lida. I too am sick of all that, but now I am at peace. We must all work out our own salvation.
Ivanov spoke very quietly and simply. Lydia Constantinovna sat bowed and motionless, as if fearing to move, clasping her knees with both hands. When Ivanov ceased speaking she rose noiselessly and went towards the door. She stood on the threshold a brief moment then, went out. The candle still burnt fitfully in the drawing-room. The house was wrapt in silence.
THE BIELOKONSKY ESTATE
Ivan Koloturov, President of the Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor, had ploughed his tiny holding for twenty years. He always rose before dawn and worked—dug, harrowed, threshed, planed, repaired—with his huge, strong, pock-marked hands; he could only use his muscular strength.
On rising in the morning, he prepared his hash of potatoes and bread, and went out of the hut to work—on the land, with cattle, with wood, stone and iron. He was honest, careful, and laborious. While still a lad of five he had, while driving from the station, helped a stranger in a mechanic's overalls to a seat; the man had told him all were equal in the sight of God, that the land belonged to the peasants, that the proprieters had stolen it from them, and that a time would come when he would have to "do things."
Ivan Koloturov did not understand what he would have to do, but when the fierce wave of the Revolution broke over the country and swept into the Steppe, he was the first to rise to "do things." Now he felt disillusioned. He had wanted to do everything honestly, but he was only able to work with his hands and muscles.
They elected him to the County Committee. He was accustomed to rise before dawn and set to work immediately. Now he was not permitted to do anything before ten o'clock. At ten he went to the Committee where, with the greatest difficulty, he put his name to papers—but this was not work: papers came in and went out independently of him. He did not understand their purport, he only signed them.
He wanted to do something! In the spring he went home to the plough. He had been elected in the Autumn, President of the Committee of the Poor, and he established himself in Prince Prozorovsky's domain, putting on his soldier brother's great coat and carrying a revolver in his belt.
He went home in the evening. His wife met him sullenly, jerking her elbows as she prepared some mash. The children were sitting on the stove, some little pigs grunted in a corner. There was a strong smell of burning wood.
You won't care to eat with us now after the Barin's meal, nagged the old woman. "You are a Barin yourself now. Ha, ha!"
Ivan remained silent, sitting down on a bench beneath the Ikon.
So you mix with rascals now, she persisted, "yes, that is what they are, Ivan Koloturov. Discontented rascals!"
Peace, fool! You don't understand. Be quiet, I say!
You are ashamed of me, so you are hiding.
We will live there together—soon.
Not I! I will not go there.
Idiot!
Ah, you have already learnt to snarl, the old woman jibed. "Ate your mash then! But perhaps you don't relish it after your Barin's pork."
She was right, he had already eaten—pork, and she had guessed it.
Ivan began to puff. "You are an idiot, I tell you," he growled.
He had come home to have a business talk about their affairs, but he left without settling anything. The old woman's sharp tongue had stung him in a tender spot. It was true that all the respectable peasants had stood aside, and only those who had nothing to lose had joined the Committee.
Ivan passed through the village. As he walked across the park, he saw a light burning in the stables and went over to discover the reason. He found some lads had assembled there and were playing cards and smoking. He watched them awhile, frowningly.
This is stupid! You will set the place alight, he grumbled.
What if we do? the men answered sulkily. "It is for you to defend other people's property?"
Not other peoples'—ours! he retorted, then turned away.
Ivan! they shouted after him; "have you the wine-cellar key? There are spirits in there—if you don't give it to us, we shall break in…."
The house was dark and silent. The huge, spacious apartments seemed strange, terrible. The Prince still occupied the drawing-room. Ivan entered his office—formerly the dining-room—and lighted a lamp. He went down on his knees and began to pick up the clods of earth that lay on the floor; he threw them out of the window, then fetched a brush and swept up. He could not understand why gentlemen's boots did not leave a trail of dirt behind them.
Then he went into the drawing-room and served the final notice on the
Prince while the men were accommodating themselves in the kitchen.
Then he joined them, lying down on a form without undressing. After a
long time he fell asleep.
He awoke the next morning while all were still sleeping, rose and walked round the manor. The lads were still playing cards in the stable.
Why aren't you asleep? one of them asked him.
I have had all I want, he replied. He called the cow-herd. The man came out, stood still, scratched his head, and swore angrily— indignant at being aroused.
Don't meddle in other people's affairs, he grunted. "I know when to wake."
The dawn was fine, clear and chilly. A light appeared in the drawing- room, and Ivan saw the Prince go out, cross the terrace and depart into the Steppe.
At ten o'clock, the President entered the office, and set about what was, in his opinion, a torturous, useless business—the making out an inventory of the wheat and rye in each peasant's possession. It was useless because he knew, as did everyone in the village, how much each man had; it was torturous because it entailed such a great deal of writing.
Prince Prozorovsky had risen at daybreak. The sun glared fiercely over the bare autumn-swept park and into the drawing-room windows. The wedding cry of the ravens echoed through the autumnal stillness that hung broodingly over the Steppe.
On such a dazzling golden day as this, the Prince's ancestors had set off with their blood-hounds in by-gone days. In this house a whole generation had lived—now the old family was forced to leave it—for ever!
A red notice—"The Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor"—had been affixed to the front door the previous evening, and the intruders had bustled all night arranging something in the hall. The drawing-room had not so far been touched; the gilt backs of books still glittered from behind glass cases in the study. Oh books! Will not your poison and your delights still abide?
Prince Prozorovsky went out into the fields; they were barren but for dead rye-stalks that stuck up starkly from the earth. Wolves were already on the trail. He wandered all day long, drank the last wine of autumn and listened to the ravens' wedding cries.
When he had beheld this bird's carnival as a child, he had clapped his hands, crying: "Hurrah for my wedding! Hurrah for my wedding!" He had never had a wedding. Now his days were numbered. He had lived for love. He had known many affections, had felt bitter pangs. He had tasted the poison of the Moscow streets, of books and of women; had been touched by the autumnal sadness of Bielokonsky, where he always stayed in the autumn. Now he knew grief!
He walked aimlessly through the trackless fields and down into hollows; the aspens glowed in a purple hue around him; on a hill behind him the old white house stood amid the lilac shrubbery of a decaying park. The crystal clear, vast, blue vista was immeasurably distant.
The hair on his temples was already growing thin and gray—there was no stopping, no returning!
He met a peasant, a rough, plain man in a sheep-skin jacket, driving a cart laden with sacks. The man took off his cap and stopped his horse, to make way for the … gentleman.
Good morning, little Father, he wheezed, then addressed his beast, pulled the reins, drove on, then stopped again and called out:
Listen, Barin, I want to tell you….
The Prince turned round and looked at the man. The peasant was old, his face was covered with hair and wrinkles.
What will your Excellency do now?
That is difficult to say, replied the Prince.
When will you go? the old man asked. "Those Committees of the Poor are taking away the corn. There are no matches, no manufacturers, and I am burning splinters for light…. They say no corn is to be sold…. Listen, Barin, I will take some secretly to the station. People are coming from Moscow … and … and … about thirty five of them … thirty five I tell you!… But then, what will there be to buy with the proceeds?… Well, well! It is a great time all the same … a great time, Barin! Have a smoke, your Excellency."
Prozorovsky refused the proffered pipe, and rolled himself a small cigar of an inferior brand. Around was the Steppe. No one saw, no one knew of the peasant's compassion. The prince shook hands with him, turned sharply on his heel and went home.
The cold, clear, glassy water in the park lake was blue and limpid, for it was still too early for it to freeze all over. The sun was now sinking towards the west in an ocean of ruddy gold and amethyst.
Prince Prozorovsky entered his study, sat down at the desk and drew out a drawer full of letters. No! he could not take all his life away with him: He laid the drawer on the desk, then went into the drawing- room. A jug of milk and some bread stood on an album-table. The Prince lighted the fire, burnt some papers, and stood by the mantelpiece drinking his milk and eating the bread, for he had grown hungry during the day…. The milk was sour, the bread stale.
Already the room was filling with the dim shadows of evening, a purplish mist hung outside; the fire burnt with a bright yellow flame.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the silence of the corridor, and Ivan Koloturov appeared in the doorway. Koloturov! As young lads they had played together, Ivan had developed into a sober, sensible, thrifty, and industrious peasant. Standing in the middle of the room, the President silently handed the Prince his paper—it had taken him a whole hour to type it out.
On the sheet was typed "To the Barin Prozorovsky. The Bielokonsky
Committee of the Poor order you to withdraw from the Soviet Estate of
Bielokonsky and from the district precincts. President Koloturov."
Very well, said the Prince quietly; "I will go this evening."
You will take no horse.
I will go on foot.
As you like, Koloturov replied. "You will take nothing with you." He turned round, stood a moment with his back to the Prince, then went out of the room.
At that instant, a clock struck three quarters of the hour. It was the work of Kuvaldin, the eighteenth century master. It had been in the Moscow Kremlin and had afterwards travelled through the Caucasus with the Vadkovsky Princes. How many times had its ticking sounded during the course of those centuries.
Prozorovsky sat down by the window and looked out at the neglected park. He remained there for about an hour, leaning his arms on the marble sill, thinking, remembering. His reflections were interrupted by Koloturov. The peasant came in silently with two of his men and passed through into the office. They endeavoured silently to lift a writing-table. Something cracked.
The Prince rose and put on his big grey overcoat, a felt hat, and went out. He walked through the rustling gold-green foliage of the park, passed close by some stables and a distillery, descended into a dell, came up on its opposite side. Then, feeling tired, he decided to walk slowly—walk twenty miles on foot for the first time in his life. After all, how simple the whole thing was … it was only terrible in its simplicity.
The sun had already sunk beneath the horizon. The last ravens had flown. An autumn hush over-hung the Steppe. He walked on briskly through the wide, windy, open space, walking for the first time he knew not whither, nor wherefore. He carried nothing, he possessed nothing. The night was silent, dark, autumnal, and frosty.
He walked on briskly for eight miles, heedless of everything around, then he stopped a moment to tie his shoe lace. Suddenly he felt an overwhelming weariness and his legs began to ache; he had covered nearly forty miles during the day.
In front of him lay the village of Makhmytka; he had often ridden there in his youth on secret visits to a soldier's wife; but now he would not go to her; no, not for anything in the world! The village lay pressed to the earth and was ornamented with numerous stacks which smelt of straw and dung. On its outskirts the Prince was met by a pack of baying dogs, who flitted over the ground like dark, ghostly shadows as they leapt round him.
At the first cabin he tapped at the little window, dimly lighted within by some smouldering splinters.
Who is there? came the tardy response.
Let me in for the night, good people, called the Prince.
Who is it?
A traveller.
Well, just a minute, came the grudging answer.
A bare-footed peasant in red drawers came out holding a lighted splinter over his head and looking round.
Ah! he exclaimed, "it is you, Prince! So you were too wise to stay, were you? Well, come in."
An immense quantity of straw was spread over the floor. A cricket was chirruping, and there was a smell of soot and dung.
Lay yourself down, Barin, and God bless you!
The peasant climbed on to the stove and sighed. His old wife began to mutter something, the man grumbled, then said to the Prince:
Barin, you can have your sleep, only get up in the morning and leave before daylight, so that none will see you. You know yourself these are troubled times, there is no gainsaying it. You are a gentleman, Barin, and gentlemen have got to be done away with. The old woman will wake you…. Sleep now.
Prozorovsky lay down without undressing, put his cape under his head— and at once caught a cockroach on his neck! Some young pigs grunted in a corner. The hut was swarming with vermin, blackened by smoke and filled with stenches. Here, where men, calves and pigs herded all together, the Prince lay on his straw, tossing about and scratching. He thought of how, some centuries hence, people would be writing of this age with love, compassion, and tenderness. It would be thought of as an epoch of the most sublime and beautiful manifestation of the human spirit.
A little pig came up, sniffed all round him, then trotted away again. A low, bright star peeped in through the window. How infinite the world seemed!
He did not notice when he fell asleep. The old woman woke him at daybreak and led him through the backyard. The dawn was bright and cold, and the grass was covered with a light frost. He walked along briskly, swinging his stick, the collar of his overcoat turned up. The sky was marvellously deep and blue.
At the station the Prince squeezed himself into a warm place on the train, amongst other passengers carrying little sacks and bags of flour. Thus, pressed against the sides of a truck, his clothes bedaubed with white flour, he journeyed off to—Moscow.
Prince Prozorovsky had left at evening. Immediately after, furniture was pulled about and re-arranged, the veneer was chipped off the desk. The clock was about to be transferred to the office, but some one noticed that it had only one hand. None of the men realised that Kuvaldin's old clocks were necessarily one-handed, and moved every five minutes simply because the minutes were not counted singly in those days. Somebody suggested that the clock could be removed from its case.
Take the clock out of the box, Ivan Koloturov ordered. "Tell the joiners to put some shelves in it, it will do as a cupboard for the office…. Now then, don't stamp, don't stamp!"
That night an old woman came running in. There was a great turmoil in the village: a girl had been abused—no one knew by whom, whether by the villagers themselves or the people who had come from Moscow for flour; the old woman began to accuse the Committee men. She stood by the window and reviled them at the top of her voice. Ivan Koloturov drove her away with a blow on the neck, and she went off wailing bitterly.
It was pitch-dark. The house was quiet. Milkmaids outside were singing boisterously. Ivan went into the study, sat down on the sofa, felt its softness, found a forgotten electric lamp and played with it, flashing its light on the walls as he passed through. He noticed the clock on the floor of the drawing-room and began to think what he would do with it, then he picked it up and threw it into the water- closet. A band of his men had broken their way into the other end of the house, and some one was thumping on the piano; Ivan Koloturov would have liked to have driven them away, to prevent them from doing damage, but he dared not. He suddenly felt sorry for himself and his old wife and he wanted to go home to his stove.
A bell clanged—supper! Ivan quietly stole to the wine-cellar, filled up his jug, and drank, then hurriedly locked the cellar door.
On the way home he fell down in the park; he lay there a long time, trying to lift himself, wanting all the while to say something and to explain—but he fell asleep.
The dark, dismal autumn night enfolded the empty, frozen, desolate
Steppe.
DEATH I
It seemed as though the golden days of "St. Martin's" summer had come to stay.
The sun shone without warmth in the vast blue expanse of sky, across which swept the gabbling cranes on their annual flight southward. A hoar-frost lay in the shadow of the houses. The air was crisp and sapphire, the cold invigorating, a brooding stillness wrapped the world.
The vine-wreathed columns on the terrace, the maple avenue and the ground beneath, all glowed under a purple pall of fallen leaves. The lake shone blue and smooth as a mirror, reflecting in its shining surface the white landing-stage and its boat, the swans and the statues. The fruit was already plucked in the garden and the leaves were falling. What a foolish wanton waste this stripping of the trees after summer seemed!
In days such as these, the mind grows at once alert and calm. It dwells peacefully on the past and the future. The individual feels impelled by a kind of langour just to walk over the fallen leaves, to look in the gardens for unnoticed, forgotten apples, and to listen to the cries of the cranes flying south.
Ippolyte Ippolytovich was a hundred years old less three months and some days. He had been a student in the Moscow University with Lermontov, and they had been drawn together in friendship through their mutual admiration of Byron. In the "sixties,"—he was then close to his fiftieth birthday—he constantly conferred with the Emperor Alexander on liberative reforms, and pored over Pisarev's writings in his own home.
It was only by the huge, skeleton frame over which stretched the parchment skin, that it could be seen he had once been a tall, big, broad-shouldered man; his large face was covered with yellowish-white hair that crept from the nose, the cheek-bones, the forehead and the ears, while the skull was completely bald; the eyes were white and discoloured; the hands and legs shrunken, and seemed as though emaciated by nature's own design.
There was a smell of wax in his room, and that peculiar fusty odour that pervades every old nobleman's home. It was a large, bare apartment containing only a massive mahogany writing-table, covered with a faded green cloth and bestrewn with a quantity of old- fashioned ornaments; there was also an armchair and a sofa.
The moulded ceiling, the greenish-white marbled walls, the dragon fire-place, the inlaid flooring of speckled birch, the window panes, rounded at the tops, curtainless and with frequent intersecting of their framework, all, had become tarnished and lustreless, covered over with all the colours of the rainbow. Through the windows streamed the mellow golden rays of the autumn sun, resting on the table, a part of the sofa, and on the floor.
For many years the old man had ceased to sleep at night so as to sit up by day. It might truly be said that he slept almost the entire twenty-four hours, and also that he sat up during the whole of that time! He was always slumbering, lying with half-open, discoloured eyes on a large sofa tapestried in pig-skin of English make, and covered with a bear-skin rug. He lay there day and night, his right arm flung back behind his head. Whenever, by day or night, he was called by his name—Ippolyte Ippolytovich, he would remain silent a moment collecting his wits, then answer:
Eh?
He had no thoughts. All that took place round him, all that he had gone through in life, was meaningless to him now. It was all outlived, and he had nothing to think about. Neither had he any feelings, for all his organs of receptivity had grown dulled.
At night mice could be heard; while through the empty, columned hall out of which his room opened, rats scurried, flopping about and tumbling down from the armchairs and tables. But the old man did not hear them.
Vasilisa Vasena came every morning at seven o'clock; she was a country-woman of about thirty seven, strong, healthy, red-faced, reminiscent of a July day in her floridness and vigorous health.
She used to say quietly: "Good morning to you, Ippolyte
Ippolytovich."
And he would give a base "Eh?" in a voice like a worn-out gramophone record.
Vasena promptly began washing him with a sponge, then fed him with manna-gruel. The old man sat bent up on the sofa, his hands resting on his knees. He ate slowly from a spoon. They were silent, his eyes gazing inwardly, seeing nothing. Sunbeams stole in through the window and glistened on his yellowish hair.
Your good son, Ilya Ippolytovich, has come, Vasena said.
Eh?
Ippolyte Ippolytovich had married at about the age of forty; of his three sons only Ilya was living. The old man called his son to memory, pictured him in his mind, but felt neither joy nor interest— felt nothing!
Dimly, somewhere far away in the dark recesses of his memory, lurked a glimmering, wavering image of his son; at first he saw him as an infant, then as a boy, finally a youth. He recollected that now already he too was almost an old man. It came to him that once, long ago, this image was necessary and very dear to him, that afterwards he had lost sight of it, and that now it had become meaningless to him.
Dully, through inertia, the old man inquired: "He has come, you say?"
Yes, came in the night, alone. He is resting now.
Eh? He has come to have a look at me before I die.
Vasena promptly answered: "Lord! you are not so young as to…."
They were silent. The old man lay back on the sofa and slept.
Ippolyte Ippolytovich, you must take your walk!
Eh?
It was a "St. Martin's Summer." Over the scattered blood-red vine leaves on the terrace, which was deluged in mellow autumnal sunshine, the bent-up old man walked, leaning heavily on a bamboo cane, and supported by the sturdy Vasena. He had a skull-cap pulled down low over his forehead, and wore a long, black overcoat.
Sometimes the old man relapsed into a state of coma, lasting several hours. Then life seemed to have ebbed from him entirely. A clay-like pallor over-spread his face, he had the lips and open, glassy eyes of a corpse, and he scarcely breathed. Then they sent post-haste for the doctor, who sprinkled him with camphor, gave him oxygen and produced artificial respiration. The old man slowly came to, rolling his eyes.
Another minute and it would have been death, the doctor would say in a deep, grave voice.
When the old man had at length recovered, Vasena used to say to him: "Lord! We were so frightened, we were so frightened! … We thought you were quite gone. Yes, we did. For you know, you are not so young as to…."
Ippolyte Ippolytovich was silent and indifferent, only at moments, half-closing and screwing up his eyes, and straightening out his lips, he laughed:
He-he! He-he! Then added, slyly: "I am dying, you say? He-he! He- he!"
Ilya Ippolytovich walked through the empty rooms of the dying house. How dusty and mouldy it seemed! The sun came through the tarnished window-panes and the specks of dust looked golden in its radiant light. He entered the room where he had passed his childhood. Dust lay everywhere, on the window-sills, on the floor, and on the furniture. Here and there fresh boot-prints were visible. A thin portmanteau—not belonging to the house and pasted over with many labels—lay on a table. A hard, icy stillness pervaded the entire place.
Ilya Ippolytovich was stout like his father, but he still walked erect. His hair was already thinning and growing grey over the temples, but his face was clean-shaven, like a youth's. His lips were wrinkled and he had large, grey, weary eyes.
He felt gloomy and unhappy, because his father's days were numbered; and he brooded miserably over the awkwardness of approaching death, wondering how one should behave towards a man who was definitely doomed. To and fro, from corner to corner, he walked, with restless, springy steps.
He met his father on the terrace.
Hallo, father! he said briskly, with an intentional show of carelessness.
The old man looked at him blindly, not recognising his son at first. But afterwards he smiled, went up the steps, and gave his cheek to be kissed. It smelt of wax.
Eh? said the old man.
Ilya kissed him, laughed hilariously, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder: "It is a long time since we met, father. How are you?"
His father looked at him from beneath his cap, gave a feeble smile, then said after a pause: "Eh?"
Vasena answered for him: "You may well ask how he is doing, Ilya
Ippolytovich! Why, we are fearing the worst every day."
Ilya threw her a reproachful glance and said loudly: "It is nonsense, father! You have still a hundred years to live! You are tired, let us sit down here and have a talk together."
They sat down on the marble steps of the terrace. Silence. No words came to Ilya. Try as he might, he could not think what to say.
Well, I am still painting pictures, he tried at last; "I am preparing to go abroad."
The old man did not hear him; he looked at his son without seeing or understanding, plunged in his own reflections.
You have come to look at me? You think I shall die soon? he asked suddenly.
Ilya Ippolytovich grew very pale and muttered confusedly: "What are you saying, father? What do you mean?"
But his father no longer heard. He had fallen back in his chair, his eyes half-closed and glassy, his face utterly expressionless. He was asleep.
The sun was shining, the sky was blue; in the limpid spaces above the earth there was a flood of crystal light.
Ilya Ippolytovich strolled through the park and thought of his father. The old man had lived a full, rich, and magnificent life. It had possessed so much that was good, bright and necessary. Now— death! Nothing would remain. Nothing! And this nothing was terrible to Ilya Ippolytovitch.
Does not living man recognize life, the world, the sun, all that is around and within him, through himself? he reflected. A man dies, and the world dies for him. Thenceforward he feels and recognises nothing. Nothing! Then what is the use of living, developing, working, when in the end there will be—nothing?… Was there no great wisdom in his father's hundred years? Nor in his fatherhood?
A crane was crying somewhere overhead. The sound came from a scarcely visible dark arrow in the cloudless sky, which flew south. Red, frost-covered leaves were rustling underfoot. Ilya's face was pale, the wrinkles round his lips made him seem tired and feeble. He had spent his whole life alone, in the solitude of a cold studio, living arduously among pictures, for the sake of pictures. To what end?
Ippolyte Ippolytovich sat in the large, bare dining-room eating chicken cutlets and broth. A napkin was tied round his neck as if he were a child. Vasena fed him from a tea-spoon, and afterwards led him into his study. The old man lay down on a sofa, put his hand behind his head and fell asleep, his eyes half-open.
Ilya went to him in the study. He again made a pretence of being cheerful, but his tired eyes betrayed grief, and behind his clean- shaven face, his grey English coat, and yellow boots, somehow one felt there was a great shaken and puzzled soul suffering, yet seeking to conceal its anguish.
He sat down at his father's feet.
For a long time the old man searched his face with his eyes, then in a scraping, worn-out piping voice, said: "Eh?"
It is so long since we met, father, I am longing to have a chat with you! Somehow I have no one dearer to me than you! Absolutely no one! How are you, sir?
The old man gazed before him with bleary eyes. He did not seem to have heard. But suddenly screwing up his eyes, straightening out his lips and opening his empty jaws, he laughed:
He-he! he-he! he laughed, and said jovially: "I am dying soon. He- he! he-he!"
However, Ilya no longer felt as embarrassed as on that first occasion on the terrace. In a hasty undertone, almost under his breath, he asked:
But aren't you afraid?
No! He-he!
Don't you believe in God?
No! He-he!
They were silent for a long time after that. Then the old man raised himself on his elbows with a sly grin.
You see, he said, "when a man is worn out … sleep is the best thing for him … that is so with dying … one wants to die…. Understand? When a man is worn out…."
He was silent for a moment, then grinned and repeated:
He-he! He-he! Understand?
Ilya gave his father a long look, standing there motionless, with wide-open eyes, feeling a thrill of utter horror.
But the old man was already slumbering.
Day faded. The blue autumnal twilight spread over the earth and peeped in through the windows. A purple mist filled the room with vague, spectral shadows. Outside was a white frost. A silvery moon triumphantly rode the clear cold over-arching sky.
Ippolyte Ippolytovich lay upon his sofa. He felt nothing. The space occupied by his body resembled only a great, dark, hollow bin in which there was—nothing! Close by, a rat flopped across the floor, but the old man did not hear. A teasing autumnal fly settled on his eyebrow, he did not wink. From the withered toes to the withered legs, to the hips, stomach, chest, and heart, passed a faint, agreeable, scarcely noticeable numbness.
It was evening now and the room was dark; the mist gathered thick and threatening through the windows. Outside in the crisp, frosty moonlight, it was bright. The old man's face—all over-grown with white hair—and his bald skull, had a death-like look.
Vasena entered in her calm yet vigorous manner. Her broad hips and deep bosom were only loosely covered by a red jacket.
Ippolyte Ippolytovich, it is time for your meal, she called in a matter of fact tone.
But he did not reply, nor utter his usual "Eh?"
They sent at once for the doctor, who felt his pulse, pressed a glass to his lips, then said in a low, solemn tone:
He is dead.
Vasena, standing by the door, and somewhat resembling a wild animal, answered calmly:
Well he wasn't so young as to…. Haven't we all got to die! What is it to him now? He and his had everything in their day! Dear Lord, they had everything!
Low, downy cloudlets drifted over the sky in the early hours of the morning. Dark, lowering masses followed in their wake. The snow fell in large, cold, soft, feather-like flakes.
St. Martin's Summer was past, to be succeeded by the advent of another earthly joy—the first white covering of snow, when it is so delicious to follow the fresh footprints of the beasts, a rifle in hand.
THE HEIRS I
Legend says that from the Sokolovaya Mountain—called the Mountain of Falcons, came Stenka Razin. It is written in books that from thence came also Emelian Pugachev.
The Sokolovaya Mountain towers high above the Volga and the plains, making a dark, precipitous descent to the pirate river below.
Across the Volga lies an ancient town. By the Glebychev Ravine, close to the old Cathedral guarded by one of Pugachev's guns, stands a mansion with a facade of ochre-coloured-columns. In olden days, when it was the residence of the princely Rastorovs' balls were held there, but decay had set in during the last twenty years, and Kseniya Davydovna—the mistress—old, ill, a spinster, was drawing to the end of her days.
She died in October, 1917, and now the tumbling, plundered house was occupied by—the heirs.
They had been scattered over the face of Russia, had spent their lives in Petersburg, Moscow and Paris; for twenty years the house had stood vacant and moribund. Then the Revolution came! The instinctive fury of the masses burst forth—and the remnants of the Rastorov family gathered in their old nest—to be hidden from the Revolution and famine.
Snow-storms—galloping snowy chargers—howled over the Steppe, the
Volga, and the town. Elemental, all-devastating, as in the days of
Stenka Razin—thundered the Revolution.
The rooms in the ancient mansion were damp, dark and chilly. The old cathedral could be seen from the window, and down below lay the Volga, seven miles wide, wrapt in a dazzling sheet of snow, its steamers moored to their wharves.
The family lived as a community at first, but their communism was nominal, for each barricaded and entrenched himself in his own room, with his own pot and samovar. They lived tedious, mean, malignant, worthless lives, execrating existence and the Revolution; they lived utterly apart from the turmoil that now replaced the placid even flow of the old regime: they were outside current events, and their thoughts for ever turned back to the past, awaiting its return.
General Kirill Lvovich awoke at seven o'clock. Everything was crowded closely together in the room, which was bedroom, drawing-room and dining-room combined. The blue dusk of morning was visible through the heavy blinds of the low window. The general put on his tasselled Bukhara dressing-gown and went outside, then returned coughing hoarsely.
Anna, he snarled, "ask your kinsfolk which of them left the place in such a state. Don't they know we have no servants? It is your turn to set the samovar to-day. Are there no cigarette boxes?" he walked about the room, his hands behind his back, diamond rings glittering on his fingers.
And it is your turn to go for the rations, retorted Anna Andreevna.
That will do, I know it. There are four families living in the house and they cannot organise themselves so as to go in turn for the rations. Give me a sheet of paper and some ink.
The general sat down at the table and wrote out a notice:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have no servants;
We must see to things ourselves. We can't
all perch like eagles, therefore,
I beg you to be more careful.
Kirill L. Lezhner."
Kirill Lvovich was not one of the heirs, it was his wife who came of the Rastorov family, and he had merely accompanied her to the ancestral mansion. Lvovich took his notice and hung it on the lavatory door. Then again he paced the floor, his jewels sparkling brilliantly.
Why the devil do Sergius and his family occupy three rooms, and we only one? he grumbled. "I shall leave this den. They don't behave like relatives! Are there no cigarettes?"
Anna Andreevna, a quiet, weary, feeble woman, replied tonelessly: "You know there are none. But I will look for some butt-ends in a moment. Lina sometimes throws away the unused cigarette wraps."
What bourgeois they are—throwing away fag-ends and keeping servants! her husband complained.
The dark twining corridor was strewn with rubbish, for no one had the will or wish to keep it neat. Anna Andreevna rummaged by the stove of Sergius Andreevich, Lina's husband, looking among the papers and sweepings. She peered into the stove and discovered that Leontyevna, the maid—a one-eyed Cyclop—had filled it with birch-wood, whereas it had been agreed that the rotting timber from the summer-house should be used as fuel first.
After enjoying a cigarette of his "own" tobacco, the general went out to the courtyard for firewood, returning with a bundle of sticks from the summer-house. The samovar was now ready and he sat down to his tea, leisurely drinking glass after glass, while Anna Andreevna heated her stove in the corridor.
A dim, wintry dawn was gradually breaking. The family of Sergius—the former head of a ministerial department—could be heard rousing themselves behind the wall.
You have had sufficient albumen; take hydrates now, rose Lina's voice, calling to her children.
Potatoes?
Yes.
And fat?
You have had enough fat.
The general smiled craftily, then muttered grumpily:
That is not eating, that is scientific alimentation. He cut himself a piece of bacon, ate it with some white bread, and drank more tea with sweet root and candied melon.
Gradually the occupants of the house roused themselves and half- dressed, sleepy—carrying their towels, empty samovars, and tooth brushes—they began to pass along the corridor in front of the general's open door.
Kirill Lvovich eyed them maliciously as he sat drinking his tea and inwardly cursed them all.
The Cyclop, Leontyevna, Sergius Andreevich's servant, tramped in heavily with her man's boots from the Labour Exchange; her solitary eye peered searchingly into Anna Andreevna's stove.
I'll see she's not deceiving us over the firewood, she shouted aggressively: "Oh, what a store she's got!"
But you have used the birch-wood, the general hit back from his room.
The Cyclop flew into a rage and slapped her thighs. One of the periodic scenes ensued.
What? Leontyevna cried, "I am not trusted, I am being spied on!
Lina Fedorovna, I am going to complain to the Exchange."
Lina Fedorovna joined in from behind her door.
She isn't trusted, she is being spied on, she echoed, "there must be spies in this house! And they call themselves intellectual people!"
But you took the birch-wood! protested Lvovich.
And they call themselves intellectual! screamed Lina.
The general came out into the passage and said severely:
It is not for us to judge, Lina Fedorovna. We are not the heirs here. But it seems strange to me that Sergius should occupy three rooms, and Anna only one—yes, very strange indeed.
The quarrel became more violent. Satisfied, the general put on his overcoat and went out to take his place in the ration queue. Lina ran to her husband; he went to get an explanation of the scene, but Lvovich was not to be found, however; he remonstrated with his sister, Anna Andreevna.
This spying is impossible, it must stop, he insisted.
But, can't you understand, it all began with searching for the butt- end of a cigarette? Anna pleaded in deep distress.
Lina had gone upstairs and was telling the whole story to Ekaterina. Anna appealed to her younger brother, Constantine, a Lyceum student, but he told her he was busy, immediately sitting down at his desk to write. Soon after, however, he rose and went to Sergius.
Busy? he asked.
What? Yes, I am busy.
Have a smoke.
They began to smoke an inferior brand of tobacco known as "Kepsten."
They were silent.
Will you have a game of chess? Constantine asked after a while.
Yes…But no, I think not, Sergius replied.
Just one game?
Just one? Well, only one!
They sat down and played chess. Constantine was dressed in a rumpled
Lyceum uniform; he wore rings on his fingers, like the general and
Sergius, and an antique gold chain hung round his neck.
Being in constant dread of requisitioners and robbers they had divided all the jewellery between them, and wore it for safety.
The brothers played one game, then a second, a fourth, a sixth— smoking and quarrelling, disagreeing over the moves and trying to re- arrange them. The general returned from the ration queue in the market and came along the passage. He peeped in at the two players through the open door, and after some hesitation decided to enter.
Greenhorns, you don't know how to play! he said.
What do you mean? Don't know how to play?
Now, now, don't fly into a rage. If I am wrong—excuse an old man … I sent Kirka for the newspaper, I gave him a twenty copeck piece for a tip.
I am not in a rage!
Very well, then that's all right. But throw over your chess. Let us play a game of chance.
They sat down and played it for the entire day, only interrupting the game to go to their rooms for dinner.
Whenever Sergius had to pay a fine he would say:
Anyhow, Kirill Lvovich, you have an objectionable manner.
Now, now, greenhorn! the general would reply.
They had not a penny between them. Katerina Andreevna had been appointed guardian of their possessions. The men refused to recognise her authority and called it merely a "femocracy." Only Sergius still had some capital, the proceeds of an estate he had sold before the Revolution. Therefore he could well afford to keep a servant.
Upstairs with Katerina were two girls who had thrown up their careers on principle—the one her college studies, the other her Conservatoire courses. They kept up a desultory conversation while helping to clean potatoes. Presently Anna and Lina joined them, and they all went down to the storeroom and began rummaging through their grandparents' old wardrobes. They turned over a variety of crinolines, farthingales, bustles and wigs, laying on one side the articles of silver, bronze and porcelain—for the Tartars were coming after dinner. The storeroom smelt of rats. Packed along its walls were boxes, coffers, trunks, and a huge pair of rusty scales.
They all gathered together on the arrival of the Tartars, who greeted them with handshakes. The general snorted. One of the Tartars, an old man wearing new goloshes over felt boots, spoke to Katerina:
How d'ye do, Barina?
The general leisurely swung one leg over the other, and said stiffly:
Be good enough to state your price.
The two Tartars looked over the old-fashioned articles, criticised them, none too well, and fixed the most ridiculous prices. The general burst out laughing and tried to be witty. Katerina grew angrier and angrier, until at last she could no longer contain herself:
Kirill Lvovich, she shouted, "you are impossible!" "Very well," came the infuriated reply; "I am not one of the heirs, I can go!"
They calmed him, however, and then began bargaining with the Tartars, who slung the old-fashioned articles carelessly over their arms— laces worked by serfs, antique, hand made candle-sticks, a field- glass and an acetylene lamp.
The twilight spread gently over the town, and through its dusky, star-spangled veil, loomed the old Cathedral—reminiscent of Stenka Razin; now and then came the chime of its deep-toned bells.
The Tartars at length succeeding in striking a bargain, rolled the goods up into neat little packs with their customary promptitude, paid out Kerensky notes from their bulging purses and left.
Then the heirs divided the proceeds. They were sitting in the drawing-room. Blinds covered the low windows; some portraits hung on the walls, a chandelier was shrouded in a muslin wrapper that had not been changed for years. A yellow oaken piano was covered with dust, and the furniture's velvet covering was tarnished and threadbare. The house struck cold.
The heirs were dressed fantastically; the general in a dressing-gown with gold embroideries and tassels; Sergius wore a black hooded coat; Lina a warm hare-skin jacket, and Katerina, the eldest—the moustached guardian—a man's thick overcoat, a petticoat and felt shoes. On all were jewels—rings, ear-rings, bracelets and necklaces.
Sergius remarked ungallantly:
This is a trying time for us all, and I propose that we divide the proceeds among us according to the number of consumers.
I am not one of the heirs, the general hastily interposed.
I don't share your socialistic views. Constantine informed Sergius with a cold smile; "I think they should be divided according to the number of heirs."
A heated argument followed, above which rang the Cathedral bells. At last, with great difficulty, they came to an agreement. Then Katerina brought in the samovar. All fetched their own bread and sweet roots and drank the tea, thankful not to have to prepare it for themselves.
Suddenly—with unexpected sadness and, therefore, unusually well—the general began to speak:
When I—a lieutenant-bridegroom—met our Aunt Kseniya for the first time, she was wearing that bustle that you sold just now. Ah, will things ever be the same again? If I were told the Bolshevik tyranny would endure for another year, I should shoot myself! For, good Lord, what I suffer! How my heart is wrung! And I am an old man…. Life is simply not worth living.
All burst into tears; the general wept as old men weep, the moustached Katerina cried in a sobbing bass. Neither could Anna Andreevna, nor the two girls who stood clasping each other in the corner, refrain from shedding tears, the girls for their youth and the sparkling joys of their maidenhood of which they had been deprived.
I would shoot them all if I could! Katerina declared.
Then Sergius' children, Kira and Lira, came in and Lina told them they might take some albumen. Kira put butter on his.
The moon rose…. The stars shone brilliantly. The snow was dead- white. The river Volga was deserted. It was dark and still by the old Cathedral. The frost was hard and crisp, crackling underfoot. The two young girls, Kseniya and Lena, with Sergius and the general, were returning to the mansion to fetch their handsleighs and toboggan down the slope to the river.
Constantine had gone into town, to a club of cocaine-eaters, to drug himself, utter vulgar platitudes, and kiss the hands of loose women. Leontyevna, the Cyclop maid from the Exchange, lay down on a bench in the kitchen to rest from the day's work, said her prayers, and fell into a sound sleep.
The general stood on the door-steps. Sergius drew up the sleighs, and they took their seats—three abreast—Kseniya, Elena and himself, and whirled along over the crackling snow, down to the ice-covered Volga. The sleighs flew wildly down the slope, and in this impetuous flight, in the sprinkling and crackling snow, and bitter, numbing frost, Kseniya dreamed of a wondrous bliss: she felt a desire to embrace the world! Life suddenly seemed so joyous.
The frost was harsh, cruel and penetrating. On regaining the house the general bristled up like a sparrow—he was frozen—and called out from the door-step:
Sergius! There is a frost to-day that will certainly burst the water-pipes. We will have to place a guard for the night.
Perhaps Sergius, and even the old man, had had a glimpse of wonderful happiness in the sleigh's swift flight over the snow. The former called back:
Never mind!—and again whirled wildly down from the old Cathedral to the Volga, where the boats and steamers plied amid the deep-blue, massive ice-floes, so sparkling and luminous in their snowy raiment.
But the general had now worked himself up to a state of great excitement. He rushed indoors and roused everyone:
I tell you, it will freeze and the pipes will burst unless you let the water run a little. There are 27 degrees of frost!
But the tap is in the kitchen and Leontyevna is sleeping there, objected Lina.
Well, waken her!
Impossible!
Damn rot! snarled the general and went into the kitchen and shook
Leontyevna, explaining to her about the pipes.
I will go to the Exchange and complain! Not even letting one rest!…Stealing in to an undressed woman!…
Lina jabbered her words after her like a parrot. Sergius ran in.
Leave off, please, he begged. "It is I who am responsible. Let
Leontyevna sleep."
Certainly, I am not one of the heirs, the general retorted smoothly.
The night and the frost swept over the Volga, the Steppe, and Saratov. The general was unable to sleep. Kseniya and Lena were crying in the attic. Constantine arrived home late, and noiselessly crept in to Leontyevna.
Bluish patches of moonlight fell in through the windows.
The water pipes froze in the night and burst.
THE CROSSWAYS
Forest, thickets, marshes, fields, a tranquil sky—and the crossways! The sky is overcast at times with dove-coloured clouds; the forest now gabbles, now groans in the glittering summer sunshine.
The crossways creep and crawl like a winding thread, without beginning and without end. Sometimes their stretch tires and vexes— one wants to go by a shorter route and turns aside, goes astray, comes back to the former way. Two wheel-tracks, ripple grass, a foot- path and around them, besides sky or rye or snow or trees, are the crossways, without beginning or end or limit. And over them pass the peasants singing their low toned songs. At times these are sorrowful, as endless as the crossways themselves: Russia was borne in these songs, born with them, from them.
Our ways lie through the crossways as they ever have done, and ever will. All Russia is in the crossways—amid the fields, thickets marshes, and forests.
But there were also those Others who wanted to march over the bog- ways, who planned to throw Russia on to her haunches, to press on through the marshlands, make main-roads straight as rules, and barricade themselves behind granite and steel, forgetful of Russia's peasant cottages. And on they marched!
Sometimes the main-road is joined by the crossways, and from them to the main-road and over it passes the long vaunted Rising, the people's tumult, to sweep away the Unnecessary, then vanish back again into the crossways.
Near the main-road lies the railway. By turning aside from it, walking through a field, fording a river, penetrating first through a dark aspen grove, then through a red pine belt, skirting some ravines, threading a way across a village, trudging wearily through dried-up river-beds and on through a marsh, the village of Pochinki is reached, surrounded by forest.
In the village were three cottages, their backs to the forest; their rugged noses seemed to scowl from beneath the pine-trees, and their dim, tear-dribbling window-eyes looked wolfish. Their grey timbers lay on them like wrinkles, their reddish-yellow thatch, like bobbed hair, hung to the ground. Behind them was the forest; in front, pasture, thickets, forest again, and sky. The neighbouring crossways coiled round them in a ring, then narrowed away into the forest.
In all three cottages dwelt Kononovs: they were not kinsfolk, though they bore that name, closer linked through their common life than kinsmen ever were. Kononov-Yonov, the One-Eyed, was the village elder: he no longer remembered his grandfather's name, but knew the olden times well, and remembered how his great-grandfathers and his great-great-grandfathers had lived and how it was good for men to live.
From the oldest to the youngest they toiled with all their strength from spring to autumn, from autumn to spring, and from sunrise to sundown, growing grey like their hen-coops from smoke, scorching in the heat and steaming sweat like boiling tar.
The kinsfolk of Yonov the One-eyed made tar besides tilling the land, while Yonov himself kept bee-hives in the forest. The sisters Yonov barked lime-trees and made bast shoes. It was a hard, stern life, with its smoke, heat, frosts, and languour; but they loved it profoundly.
The Kononovs lived alone in friendship with the woods, the fields, and the sky; yet ever engaged in stubborn struggle against them. They had to remember the rise and set of the sun, the nights and the dung- mounds. They had to look into putrid corners, watch for cold blasts from the north, and give ear to the rumbling and gabbling of the forest.
They knew:
With January, mid-winter time,
Starts the year its frosty prime,
Blows wild the wind e'er yet'tis still,
Crackles the ice in the frozen rill;
Epiphany betimes is past,
Approaches now the Lenten Fast.
In February there's a breath of heat,
Summer and winter at Candlemas meet.
In April the year grows moist and warm the air,
The old folks' lives without their doors bids fair;
The woodcock then comes flying from the sea,
Brings back the Spring from its captivity.
Under a showery sky,
Bloom wide the fields of rye,
Ever blue and chill
May will the granaries fill.
It was necessary to work stubbornly, sternly, in harmony with the earth, to fight hand-to-hand with the forest, the axe, the plough and the scythe. They had learnt to keep their eyes wide open, for each had to hold his own against the wood-spirit, the rumbling forest, famine, and the marshes. They had learnt to know their Mother-Earth by the birds, sky, wind, and stars, like those men of whom Yonov the One-Eyed told them—those who of old wended their way to Chuvsh tribes and the Murman Forest.
All the Kononovs were built alike, strong, rugged, with short legs and broad, heavy feet like juniper-roots, long backs, arms that hung down to their knees, shoulder-blades protruding as though made for harness, mossy green eyes that gazed with a slow stubborn look, and noses like earthen whistles.
They lived with the rye, horses, cows, the sheep, the woods, and the grass. They knew that as the rye dropped seeds to the ground and reproduced in abundance so also bred beast and bird, counteracting death with birth. They knew too that to breed was also man's lot.
Ulyanka reached her seventeenth year, Ivan his eighteenth: they bowed to the winds and went to the altar.
Ivan Kononov did not think of death when he went to the war, for what was death when through it came birth? Were there not heat-waves and drought in summer? Did not the winter sweep the earth by blizzards? Yet in spring all began to pulsate again with life.
The War came: Ivan Kononov went without understanding, without reason—what concern was it of Pochinki? He was dragged through towns, he pined in spittle-stained barracks; and then he was sent to the Carpathians. He fired. He fought hand-to-hand: he fled; he retreated forty versts a day, resting in the woods singing his peasant-songs with the soldiers—and yearning for Pochinki. He found all spoke like Grandfather Yonov the One-Eyed; he learnt of the land in the olden time order, of the people's Rising. At its approach he went on furlough to Pochinki, met it there, and there remained.
The Rising came like happy tidings, like the cool breath of dawn, like a May-time shower:
Under a showery sky
Bloom wide the fields of rye,
Ever blue and chill
May will the granaries fill.
Formerly there were the village constable, the district clerk, trumperies, requisitions, and taxations; for then it was the gentry who were the guardians. But now, Yonov the One-Eyed croaked exultantly:
"
Now it's ourselves! We ourselves! In our own way! In our own world! The land is ours! We are the masters: it is the Rising! Our Rising!
"There were no storms that winter; it was cold and dark, and the wolf- packs were astir. One after another the inhabitants were stricken down with typhoid—it was with typhoid that they paid for the Rising! Half the village succumbed and was borne on the peasants' sleighs to the churchyard.
By Candlemas, when winter and summer meet, all the provisions were exhausted, and the villagers drove to the station. But even that had changed. New people congregated there, some shouting, others hurrying to and fro with sacks. The villagers returned with nothing and sat down to their potatoes.
In the spring prayers were offered up for the dead and a religious procession paraded round the village, the outskirts of which were bestrewn with ashes. Then the villagers started to take tar and bast shoes to the station; they wanted to sell them, and with the proceeds buy ploughshares, harrows, scythes, sickles, and leather straps. But they never reached the station.
Their way led them through fields all lilac-coloured in the glowing sun: there they encountered an honest peasant dressed in a short fur jacket and a cap beneath which his look was calm and grave.
He told them there was nothing at the station, that the townsfolk themselves were running like mice; and he urged them to go to Poriechie, to give Silvester the blacksmith some tar for his ploughshares, and, if he had none, to make them some of his own hand- ploughshares; then to go and sow flax. The towns were dying out. The towns were no more! It was the people's Rising, and they had to live as in the olden days: there were no towns then, and there was no need for them.
They turned back. To Poriechie for tar…. Silvester made them a hand-plough…. Grandfather Yonov the One Eyed stalked round the fields exhorting to sow: "We have to live by ourselves! Now we ourselves are the Masters! Ourselves alone! It is the Rising!"
They worked from dawn till sunset with all their strength, fastening their belts tight round their bodies to stifle the pangs of hunger.
The summer passed in heat-waves, thunder and lightning. The forest gabbled in the storms at night. Towards autumn it began to rustle, leafless, beneath the showers of rain. The rye, oats, millet, and buckwheat were carried into the corn-kilns and barns, and the fields lay stripped and bare.
The corn had been harvested; there was enough and to spare till the fallow crop was reaped. The air in the peasants' cottages was bedimmed by the smoke from the stoves; Grandfather Yonov the One-Eyed climbed on to his, to tell his grandchildren fairytales and to rest.
The nights grew dark and damp, the forest began to rumble, and wolves approached from the marshlands. A new couple had grown up, bowed to the winds and wedded; half the village had perished the previous winter, and it was necessary to breed. The people lived in their cabins together with the calves, the sheep, and the swine. They used splinters for lights, striking the light from flint.
Often at night starving people from the towns brought money, clothes, foot-ware, bundles of odds-and ends—in short anything they could steal from the towns and exchange for flour. They rapped on the windows like thieves.
The Kononov women sat at their looms while the men went a-preying in the forest. And so they toiled on stubbornly, sternly, alone, fighting hand-to-hand with the night, with the forest and with the frost. The crossways to the forests became choked, and they made new ways to the marshlands, to the Seven Brothers, to the wastelands. Life was hard and stern. The peasants looked out upon the world from beneath their brows, as their cottages from beneath the pines; and they lived gladsomely, as they should.
They knew it was the Rising. And in the Rising there could be no falling back.
Forests, thickets, fields, a tranquil sky—and crossways!… Sometimes the crossways joined the main-road that ran alongside the railway. Both led to the towns where dwelt Those Others who had yearned to march over the crossways, who had made the main-roads straight as rules. And to the towns the elemental Rising of the Crossways brought death.
There, lamenting the past, in terror before the people's Rising, all were employed in offices filling up papers. All for safety held official positions, all to a man busying themselves over papers, documents, cards, placards, and speeches until they were lost in a whirlwind of words.
The food of the towns was exhausted; the lights had gone out; there was neither fuel nor water. Dogs, cats, mice, all had disappeared— even the nettles on the outskirts had been plucked by famished urchins as vegetable for soup. Into the cookhouses, whence cutlery had vanished, crowded old men in bowlers and bonneted old women, whose bony fingers clutched convulsively at plates of leavings.
Everywhere there were groups of miscreants selling mouldy bread at exorbitant prices. The dead in their thousands, over whom there was no time to carry out funeral rites, were borne away to the churches.
Famine, disease, and death swept the towns. The inhabitants grew savage in their craving for bread. They starved. They sat without light. They froze. They pulled down the hedges and wooden buildings to warm their dying hearths and their offices. The red-blood life deserted the towns; indeed it had never really existed in them; and there came a white-paper life that was death. When death means life there is no death, but the towns were still-born.
There were harrowing scenes in the spring, when, like incense at funeral-rites, the smoky wood-piles smouldered on the pillaged, ransacked, and bespattered streets with their broken windows, boarded-up doors, and defaced walls, consuming carrion and enveloping the town in a stinking and stifling vapour.
Men with soft-skinned hands still frequented restaurants, still wooed lascivious women, still sought to pillage the towns; they even plundered the very corpses, hoping to carry loot into the country, to barter it for the bread that had been gained by horny-handed labour. Thus might they postpone their deaths another month, thus might they still fill up papers, still go on wooing (legally) carnal women and await their heart's desire, the return of the decadent past. They were afraid to recognise that only one thing was left them, to rot in death—to die—that even the past they longed for was a way to death for them.
… Forests, thickets, fields, a tranquil sky….
Many dwelt in the towns—amongst them a certain man, no different from the rest. He had no bread, and he too went into the country to bargain for flour in exchange for his gramophone. Producing all the necessary papers, permits, and licences, he proceeded to the railway, which was dying because it too was of the towns.
At the station there were thousands of others with permits to travel for bread, and because of those thousands only those without permits succeeded in boarding the train. This particular man fastened himself on the lower step of a carriage, under sacks that hung from the roof, travelling thus for some forty miles. Then he and his gramophone were thrown off, and for the first time in his life he tramped thirty miles on foot under the weight of a gramophone.
At the next station he climbed on to the roof of a carriage and travelled a hundred miles further. Then he was thrown off again, But there the main-road passed the railway; by turning aside from it, walking through a field, fording a river, making a way through the woods, skirting the ravines, trudging through river beds, and traversing the marshes he reached the village of Pochinki.
He arrived there with his gramophone at sundown. The red light of the sun was reflected on the windows, the women-folk were milking the cows: it was already autumn and the daylight faded rapidly. The man with the gramophone tapped at the window and Kononov Ivan lifted the shutter.
Look, comrade, I've a gramophone here, to exchange for flour … a gramophone, a musical instrument, and records….
Throwing back his shoulders, Kononov-Ivan stood by the window—then stooped, looked askance at the sunset, at the fields, at the musical instrument. He reflected a moment, then muttered absently:
Aint wanted…. Go to Poriechie…. and the shutter dropped.
A sombre sky in autumnal lights—and the crossways…. Two wheel- tracks, ripple-grass, a foot-path. Sometimes the wanderer tired, that path seemed interminable, without beginning or ending. He turned aside, went astray, returned on his tracks—evermore to the thickets, forests, marshes….